Boom Blox sales: EA content, analysts less upbeat

by Ross Miller { Jun 17th 2008 at 6:00PM }

While we thought sales of Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox was less than stellar (in all fairness, it did sell about twice that of Zack and Wiki in its first month), Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello said the game has met internal expectations. Speaking at a William Blair Investor Conference today, he said "It's continued to sell well. It did break into the top 10 for the Wii, and the advertising is doing exactly what [our] team expected to: drive sales."

MTV Multiplayer spoke with a few analysts who were decidedly less impressed with the sales so far. Pacific Crest Securities, who initially predicted 250,000 in unit sales, said, "It appears that success on the Wii will remain difficult to achieve." Michael Pachter, who wasn't too hopeful in the first place, wondered if it was a marketing problem on EA's part.

Joystiq's official in-house analysts all agree that the game would have sold a minimum 3 bajillion more copies had it kept head tracking. Maybe it's going multi-platform, after all. Riccitello also said the game could sell several hundred thousands, and given Zack and Wiki's continued sales, he may have a point.

Tags: boom-blox, ea, electronic-arts, John-riccitiello, michael-pachter, zack-and-wiki

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DonWii @ Jun 17th 2008 6:07PM

Did Carnival Games sell 1M the fist month? Did it sell 250k first month?

Nope. It sold about 50k first month. Look at it now.

Joe @ Jun 18th 2008 12:59AM

Boom Blox isn't a knockoff that retails for 29.99.

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ Jun 17th 2008 6:07PM

Well, I guess that's good then.

Michelle @ Jun 17th 2008 6:13PM

Can we please put a moratorium on using quotes from Michael Pachter? It seems like every single industry article has to use him. It's not just Joystiq, it's almost everyone. He's not the only game industry analyst in the world.

eclipsemagazine.com

AoE @ Jun 17th 2008 7:54PM

Michelle, perhaps if you told them which analysts meet with Eclipse Magazine's standards, they'd have some idea who to listen to instead.

Also... is this a legit comment, or just blogspam?

Michelle @ Jun 17th 2008 8:05PM

it's a little of both blogspam and a complaint that every industry article seems to include a quote from Michael. This isn't a slam against him, it's that I would like to see other people quoted besides the same person. As far as Eclipse goes, no, we don't use analyst there as we don't generally do stories that require them.

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ Jun 17th 2008 8:16PM

Can't say I care for Patcher, either. But despite how often he is wrong, he has the best track record out of all the industry analysts.

Analysts serve no purpose to people like us, the consumers who play the games. Their main purpose is to install confidence/fear into the business types so they know how to play their cards.

AoE @ Jun 17th 2008 8:20PM

Well, granted this is probably because as you said everyone quotes Pachter, but I certainly can't think of any other analysts who work at any prominent investment/brokerage firm beside Pachter... if nothing else I would assume the fact that he's specialized in the game market; and more importantly perhaps works at Wedbush Morgan are the reasons he's quoted so much. But in all honesty, can you name any other analysts who specialize in video games in the north american market? I've been wracking my brain and can't think of a single one...

TwEE @ Jun 17th 2008 6:10PM

This game isnt proof that third party games dont sell on the wii.. Did people really expect it would have done anybody... on any system? Other then the analysts.

TwEE @ Jun 17th 2008 6:12PM

Done any better.. not anybody.. asdfasdfasdf

velocitySTRIKE @ Jun 17th 2008 6:11PM

With clever advertising I'm sure it could do a lot better. It is a great game whose image lets it down.

Velops @ Jun 17th 2008 6:12PM

Sounds like that EA knew the retail price was too high. This game will probably have a long tail when the price starts to drop.

Jacksons @ Jun 17th 2008 6:25PM

Yeah, exactly. It's a pretty decent game, but $50 is too high.

D_Average @ Jun 17th 2008 6:42PM

Same here, once it hits 30, I'm buying it. I can then take the extra 20 and get a couple sweet headbands.

jamchild @ Jun 17th 2008 6:27PM

Am I the only person who noticed that the production quality on this game is extremely low? They re-use stretched-out texture maps all over the place, the menu interface is truly awful, and the art direction is pretty weak. The physics are fun, but they could have done a WHOLE lot more to make it captivating.

Vidikron (FU) @ Jun 17th 2008 11:07PM

Yes. I think this is the other big problem beside the price. I know Wii fans are big on downplaying graphics, but the do matter and Boom Blox skimped BIG TIME in the graphics department. It has a virtually no textures and the entire game is basically just blocks. I mean, I understand that blocks are the theme, but since they aren't exactly hard to render they could have used the spare power/RAM on other eye candy. It's really too bad, the gameplay itself it quite fun... it just looks cheap though.

4MyFriends @ Jun 17th 2008 6:23PM

Before we declare the Wii a fad yet again, and say no 3rd party game can do good on the system, it needs to be made clear of the circumstances surrounding the game; it's a puzzle game, in a flooded "casual" game market, that retailed for 50 dollars and had a poor marketing approach. It's a full price title that has to compete with titles not just as good, but at a much cheaper price, it was destined to sell poorly.

greg @ Jun 17th 2008 6:33PM

I think the biggest problem with selling this game is that it's difficult to explain what exactly it is to people. Heck, I picked it up last night, sort of on a whim (had some grad money burning a hole in my pocket!) even though I really didn't know what I was getting into. I had watched some videos online, but I didn't really "get" the concept of the game until I actually played it. And even now, I still think the best explanation I could give of this game to other people is "you throw things at other things, and make things fall down."

So I'm not terribly surprised by the sales #s, but I think word of mouth will be kind to the game. Once you play the game, you realize how ridiculously fun it is, and once your friends try it out, they'll want it, too.

Geist @ Jun 17th 2008 7:10PM

It's Jenga, but with baseballs, bowling balls, and little furry creatures that need to die. I don't really know how to make it more simple than that.

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ Jun 17th 2008 8:14PM

I'm sold on Geist's description.

DonWii @ Jun 17th 2008 6:46PM

The biggest problem is the price, especially for Joe Consumer.
Does EA really expect Joe Consumer to pluck down $50 for a game that looks like a Jenga Rip-off? Apparently not, since it met expectations.

Markez (MKWii 4339-2878-5120) @ Jun 17th 2008 7:36PM

But this game had so much media hype!!! Hello people, there were
commercials for it, massive hype, according to other people, on the
BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and NARUTO!!! It aired during those shows,
Nintendo's key demo, AND IT STILL FAILED, IT WILL PROBABLY NEVER SELL
ANOTHER COPY!!! Proof the Wii is a fad and 3rd party suckers!!!

Sarcasm aside, I never saw a single advertisement for it. What's
more than likely is the majority of people who have had exposure to
it up to this point are core gamers, or dare I say it, the overused
stupid moniker 'hardcore' gamers. People who read gaming blogs, and
gaming sites.

I'm looking forward to picking this up, when I can finally manage to
put GTAIV down. Also, I'm thinking of starting a petition to keep
the Hillbillies off the air, FOREVER.

Markez (MKWii 4339-2878-5120) @ Jun 17th 2008 7:39PM

Oh balls, sorry for straining everyone's eyeballs.

BPM [MKWii: 2578 3585 8392] @ Jun 17th 2008 8:14PM

PROTIP: No need to hit return everytime you hit the end of the text box. The text automatically wraps around. Magic, isn't it?

ManekiNeko @ Jun 17th 2008 8:48PM

HOLY CRAP! This is the most shocking thing I've heard all month!

Not the poor sales of Boom Blox, but the fact that one of Michael Pachter's predictions was actually correct. Amazing!

Kenology @ Jun 17th 2008 11:00PM

I don't understand the gloom and doom surrounding this game. First off, it's a damn puzzle game. It's niche. It's not gonna sell tons of copies in it's first month. Second of all, EA's tweeny marketing campaign was not the best way to promote the game. Thirdly, it's sad when the media cherry-picks a game like this to illustrate the point that Wii 3rd party games supposedly don't sell. This just seems all too viral to me.

Kenology @ Jun 17th 2008 11:04PM

Also, forgot to mention, this game will have legs. DonWii brought up the Carnival Games example already, and I see no reason why this game won't follow suit.

Mighty Shockwave @ Jun 18th 2008 1:16AM

Boom Blox looks interesting, but 50 bucks is far too high a price for a puzzler with hardly any plot. If it was a WiiWare title it would be an instant buy for me, but apparantly that idea was scapped. For those saying that the Wii isn't a good third-party console, it isn't because those games don't sell; third-party games don't sell because they're cheap ripoffs. Name 3 serious exclusive third-party attempts at making a game with a deep and moving plot, stunning visuals, multidimensional characters, and good gameplay mechanics. The Conduit is the only upcoming Wii title that tries to do any of this, and will be an instant buy even if it's only mildly good because the developers at least did their best to make something interesting. Put good games on the Wii THAT UTILIZE THE HARDWARE PROPERLY (you've got to make up somehow for the lower graphical capabilities), and people will buy them.

t_m @ Jun 18th 2008 11:17AM

Of course they are happy, the development costs were probably 1/4 of something like MGS4.

This is totally non-newsworthy. You don't see film sites trying to make a big deal out of the fact that Juno only made 1/3rd of what Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made!?!

Independent/niche games (which is essentially what this is) are never gonna make as much as big blockbuster franchises... but they don't cost as much either, and the publishers have different expectations of their performance.

I think the games market is big enough for blockbusters, indies and casuals.

(however, I do think the price for wii games is too high. casual users are used to dvd/cd prices, not used to shelling out 3-4 times that for a game. Wii devs should make shorter games, and sell them for dvd/cd prices. )